The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 21, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reporter's Diary

On Monday, the only functioning lift (there are two and walls are being broken to put in a third) at the Institute of Child Health at Egmore did not work. Parents had to carry sick children, many of them nearly 10 years old, up several floors. The hospital has nine floors but no ramp though the surgery ward is on the third floor. At one time the surgery ward was overflowing with people and equipment, waiting for the lift.

Parents who sat on the narrow, grubby steps that lead to each ward spoke to each other about how difficult it was without the lift. Reality hit hard when a man climbed up several flights of stairs with a naked boy in his arms. He had to be doubly careful as the boy was hooked to wires and a plastic bag holding his urine.

Caregivers trekked up and down for their tray of free food that is usually brought up to each ward by the lift.

The ICH director, S. Mangayarkarasi, said a new lift had been approved recently at a cost of Rs. 22 lakhs and by October first week it would be installed. ``We are told the new one will never go out of order,'' she said. The existing lifts are about 25 years old, as old as the building, which itself is in urgent need of repairs.

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All the criticism about blatant violations by bus crews will not stir the authorities concerned into action, it seems. On Monday, even as the corporation organised a ``mass checking'' of buses, there was a tragic-comic scene enacted by the crew of two buses at the busy Parrys terminus. Some passengers, who were sitting inside a bus, got down from the vehicle on seeing another bus on the same route leaving the terminus. While the fittest among the runners, including a couple of girls, boarded the second bus even while it was in motion, the others were left behind. But to the shock and surprise of the driver who left first, the other bus was already ahead of him by the time he reached the General Hospital. The driver was heard telling the conductor that his counterpart in the other vehicle had taken a short cut. Which driver was smarter, the passengers wondered, while cursing MTC for the way it operates its buses.

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While the Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad's maiden visit to Chennai may have been an occasion for the Railway babus, for the travellers, especially on express trains, it was a nuisance. On Friday night, the Mettupalayam-bound Nilgiris train reached Coimbatore two hours behind schedule. There was no clear reason given for the delay.

And for those travelling on the second class air-conditioned coaches, provision of rug, pillow, and bedsheets was also delayed as the lone attender in the air-conditioned coach did not turn up on time. The travellers had to approach him and get the rugs or pillow. The Minister has promised ``lavatories as in airplanes'' in the trains. The passengers are not so sure.

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The water crisis seems to have manifold ramifications, with some earning money while others lose. Residents in apartment complexes and houses in the upper floors find it difficult to carry the water and engage maidservants to carry water at Rs. 2 per pot. The latter end up earning Rs. 20 for lifting 10 pots of water. Ironically, many houses that were occupied by tenants sport `To Let' boards for several months now. The reason: No tenants want to live in houses that do not have adequate water supply.

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Large groups of primates hang around several parts of the green spaces on the sprawling Anna University campus. Offices, housing and living quarters of employees all offer a variety of leftover food not to mention ``off-the-shelf'' food from trees and plants. But unless provoked, the monkeys are quite content to keep out of the way.

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(Contributed by R. Sujatha, K.T. Sangameswaran, T.S. Shankar and Swahilya)

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